Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property publishes document with suggestions for updating the Industrial Property ACT
In June, INPI (National Institute of Industrial Property), the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office, published a document prepared by its technical staff proposing updates to the Industrial Property ACT (Law No. 9.279/1996) – which was enacted 30 years ago. After analysing internal proposals and those from the Interministerial Group on Intellectual Property (GIPI)—a group bringing together Federal Government bodies and civil society— INPI presented proposals that may be split into four groups:
(i) suggestions for legislative amendments;
(ii) suggestions regarding rules in order to guarantee better handling of intellectual property rights applications via INPI’s own internal regulations;
(iii) suggestions requiring further study; and
(iv) suggestions that were rejected.
Regarding the biotechnology sector, some of the most relevant proposals include:
(i) reformulating the definitions of non-patentable subject matter to allow for the protection of parts of living organisms, biological sequences, and extracts, in order to align legislation with technological advances in biotechnology and software; and
(ii) modifying biotechnology patent examination guidelines to allow biological sequences to be defined based on data deducible by a person skilled in the art. Also noteworthy is the rejection of a suggestion that would have further restricted the possibility of making amendments during the patent application examination process.
The full text containing the INPI’s suggestions for improving intellectual property legislation is available here (in Portuguese).
If you have any questions, the team is available at patents@soutocorrea.com.br.